Page 7 of Stand By Me

Besides, Clay hadn't even told Jake yet that he'd been there at the Smithsonian today.

He rolled onto his stomach and pressed his head into the pillow. What a mess this "keeping his distance" was turning out to be.

In many ways, this part of his life was easier back in Switzerland. He and Jake were always together, always available, always there for each other. But when they'd gone back to the States and Clay's assignment officially ended, what they had was apparently called codependency now, something they needed to work their way out of instead of embracing.

So they were trying. Clay even set up a bunch of stupid rules for himself to follow, to avoid picking up his phone and texting Jake every time he wanted to share something. He still grabbed his phone a lot but often managed to stop himself from sending a text.

It rarely felt like a victory, though.

It had been hard enough to disentangle their friendship from the working relationship. Disentangling a healthy friendship from a codependent us-two-against-the-world relationship was pretty much a nightmare.

A nightmare, which, currently, left Clay unable to text his closest friend about the cute guy he'd seen today.

He groaned into the pillow.

Yeah, he was definitely fucking things up.

* * *

Thankfully, a good night sleep greatly improved his mood. So much so that as he arrived at work and sought Martinez out in his office, Clay earned himself a glare.

"You're too chipper for a guy who doesn't drink coffee," Martinez told him before taking a big gulp from his oversized mug and motioning him to take a seat at the other desk.

At KRK, offices were shared by permanent field partners, which meant the desk was Jeremy's, but he was out today, supporting the team covering some big event down in Arlington.

"Or I'm chipper because I don't drink it." Clay toasted him with his tea before he pulled out the tablet with his notes.

Martinez rolled his eyes. "Nasty propaganda."

They'd gone over some of the biggest issues yesterday, but they wanted to run through everything before heading to the museum in the afternoon. Martinez opened the floor plans on his desktop computer along with the copies of the previous benefit assignments.

As they worked, Clay found himself relaxing at their back and forth. They bounced ideas of each other one second and joked the next, and ended up grabbing lunch together when they were done.

"Man, I can't imagine it. Eleven years on an out-of-the-country assignment?" Martinez shook his head. "My entire military career was shorter than that."

"It sounds worse than it was," Clay said, used to people's reactions to that particular topic by now.

"I hope so, for your sake." Martinez grabbed another fry. "There are no solo missions at KRK. On the usual personal detail assignments, it's two pairs of field agents on rotating schedule. Everything else is individually planned and can take from two to twenty people. I don't think we've ever gone higher than that."

"That's twenty field agents or does that include the comms personnel?" Clay asked after swallowing a mouthful of his burger.

"Field agents. Comms support is always there, too, of course, and they're amazing. More often than not, you'll end up working with the same comms specialist on every op once you get your permanent partner, so it's almost like having your own small team, you know? But for the bigger assignments like this one, we'll get several." Martinez finished his fries and sat back. "Did they show you our comm links yet? If not, you need to check them out ASAP. They're state of the art. I wish we had them in the Air Force, but at least I get to have them now."

Clay grinned. "Oh, in that case, I'm going there right after this."

"Eat up, then. I'm going with."

True to his word, Martinez led him tothe comm center—an open space set-up on the second floor, which also served as the field tech equipment storage room. There was a team of six there currently, three guys and three women, each of them sitting behind a desk with double monitor set up.As the introductions went on, Clay doubted he'd remember all their names right away, but the least he could do was make an effort.

"And this here is Edward, who insists we call him Eddie. He's my favorite," Martinez told Clay, dropping onto the chair by the desk of the man in question, "but sadly, he doesn't return the sentiment."

Eddie didn't even glance at him, turning back to his keyboard after greeting Clay.

"That's what you get for disabling your comm."

"That was one time!" Martinez protested. "And I was already off duty."

"There were two minutes still on the clock," Eddie told him in a way that suggested they had this conversation already. More than once.

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